The last six months or so has seen a veritable storm of high-end smartphones. While you can generally count on new hardware being released year-round, this holiday season is particularly busy. Between the iPhone 5, iOS 6, the Nexus 4, Android 4.2, and Windows Phone 8, things have changed quite a bit since the summer.

Even more exciting, the smartphone wars aren't just a two-horse race anymore. Apple and Samsung continue to be the giants in the field, but we're seeing attractive handsets from a newly competitive LG, a Google that seems more eager than ever to show its Android partners how it's done, an HTC that's eager to thin out its product portfolio and reverse its ill fortunes, and a Nokia that really wants its bet on Windows Phone to pay off.

We know all this new hardware and software can be hard to keep straight. To that end, we'll be taking some time over the next few weeks to go in-depth on the state of the smartphone: we'll be examining not just the available hardware and software, but also which hardware and software will work best for particular uses. More than ever, smartphones are powerful devices that can handle an increasingly large amount of the work formerly unique to full-fledged computers. But just like the PC market, the hardware and software you buy is going to depend on what kind of things you need to use it for.

For the purposes of this overview, we're going to be focusing on current, high-end iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 8 handsets. These aren't the only players in the field, but they're certainly the most consequential: smaller platforms like Tizen, Open WebOS, and Firefox OS are either still in development or not widely available commercially. As for BlackBerry, RIM seems to be all but begging users, developers, and the press alike to wait for BlackBerry 10 to come out before writing it off... so that's what we'll do. Expect more coverage of RIM's latest as its projected March 2013 launch date approaches, but BlackBerry won't factor into today's discussion.

To kick off this series, we'll examine each platform's major strengths and weaknesses, then dive into specific phones and use cases.

The Platforms

iOS

However you feel about Apple, iOS and the iPhone redefined the smartphone market when they were released in 2007. Five major OS updates later it's still a solid platform; Apple has added its own unique features (iCloud, Siri, Passbook, and others) to keep the iPhone fresh, while borrowing the best features from other platforms (the Notification Center, in particular) to keep it competitive. In iOS, Apple focuses on creating a smooth and responsive experience above all—the screen usually reacts instantly to touch, and even in cases where applications don't launch instantly, Apple makes good use of animations and transitions throughout the system to let users know that their input has been recognized.

The biggest draw of Apple's smartphone platform continues to be its vibrant third-party application library. There are problems, both real and imagined, with Apple's opaque application approval process and the limitations imposed by its sandboxing model. But the breadth, depth, and general level of polish among the applications available trumps both Android and Windows Phone.

This is because, generally speaking, the iOS platform is pretty developer-friendly: compared to Android there are just a few different devices and screen sizes that must be tested against. iOS users tend to both download more apps and to pay more for those apps as well. There may be restrictions on what developers can do, but if you're looking to earn a return on your investment, Apple's platform is the one to beat in the mobile space.

Gaming, in particular, is one of Apple's strengths. The development environment attracts not just big mobile game publishers like Rovio or Halfbrick, but also droves of independent developers who put out small-but-memorable titles like Tiny Wings and 10000000. Apple's products tend to have more powerful graphics processors than most competing phones as well.

The other benefit to buying into the iOS platform is the hardware's relative longevity. iPhones tend to receive regular software updates (and their accompanying new features, security patches, and stability enhancements) for years after their release, regardless of which carrier you prefer. The most recent version of iOS runs on four generations of iPhone, reaching all the way back to 2009's iPhone 3GS. Not all phones support all of the operating system's features, but the general feature set, look and feel, and (more importantly for developers) list of supported APIs is consistent across all of the phones.

All of that said, the platform's biggest weakness (at least for some users) is its inflexibility. Apple controls every aspect of the user experience, meaning that if you don't like its app launcher, keyboard, or default Web browser and e-mail programs, you can't do much to change them. (Alternative programs for many tasks do exist, but Apple's restrictions prevent them from becoming fully integrated into the operating system.) iOS's home screen is also the least flexible of our chosen mobile platforms. You can only arrange app icons and folders into a grid on the home screen, but these icons are static images that can't provide information dynamically. Yes, each icon can display a number to alert you of items that need your attention, but what this number means can vary widely from app to app. Application widgets can't be placed on the home screen, and third-party developers can't produce widgets for the Notification Center either. Simply put, iOS is the way it is. That won't be a problem for many users, but it can feel unnecessarily restrictive to others.

Android

iOS' greatest weakness is in many ways Android's greatest strength: the platform is almost infinitely flexible. Google provides an increasingly polished, cohesive base operating system. On top of it, handset makers, carriers, the open source community, and even end users can build basically anything they want. Don't like Android's icons? Change them. Don't like how the keyboard works? Replace it. Don't like the layout or operating of the default home screen? Install a new one. Many alternatives exist in the Google Play store, which places relatively few restrictions on the kind of apps developers can and can't offer.

This lack of restrictions also allows applications to work together more freely, as they can on a more full-fledged computer. Android's Intents system allows an application to tell the operating system what it can do—open a link, upload a file, send a Tweet, and so on. Any application that needs to perform one of those activities can then choose among different applications and services on the phone. A link in an e-mail can be opened in either Firefox or Chrome by default, for example, where in iOS only Safari can open links by default.

The home screen itself is also pretty flexible. Like iOS, you'll mostly be using static icons to launch applications, but Android also allows the use of widgets to view small amounts of information without having to jump all the way into an app. If you just want a birds-eye view of your calendar or inbox, or if you'd like quick access to settings like screen brightness and whether Bluetooth is enabled, widgets will let you do all of that more quickly and more flexibly than in iOS.

All of this flexibility in software also extends to greater flexibility in hardware—Android's open nature allows just about anyone to use it on their phones (and just about everyone does). Android phones are a diverse bunch, but generally speaking the high-end phones tend to use larger, higher-resolution screens and fast processors with more cores. These features do, however, generally come at the cost of reduced battery life.

For all of its virtues, Android's extreme flexibility means it's also plagued by another F-word: fragmentation. Android looks and acts similarly on different phones, but not identically. Each manufacturer's UI skin requires a certain amount of getting used to, making it more difficult to hop from phone to phone. Phone makers and carriers are also notorious for taking a devil-may-care approach to software updates, meaning most handsets are running older versions of Android that are missing security patches and recently introduced features. If you want to avoid this problem, you can always buy a phone or tablet from Google's Nexus line, which is treated as a "reference" platform for Android and tends to get new software updates promptly for a few years. No other third-party manufacturer has committed to releasing timely updates for any amount of time.

This fragmentation also means the experience of using Android can vary widely from handset to handset. Android, especially in versions prior to the first "Jelly Bean" release over the summer, has long had issues with user interface smoothness. Things like scrolling and swiping are sometimes jerky and inconsistent. Android phone makers have tried to compensate for this by throwing ever-faster hardware at the operating system, and indeed, a phone running a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon chip tends to feel speedy regardless of what version of Android it's running. All of the Android phones we recommend feature Snapdragon chips (as do the Windows Phones, for that matter). OEM and carrier-installed skins can still bog things down, though. I find that Samsung's TouchWiz and HTC's Sense UI, in particular, both tend to bog things down even if you're running the supposedly smooth Jelly Bean (as does HTC's Droid DNA).

The hardware and software diversity makes everything a bit more difficult for developers, who can't possibly test their apps on all available hardware and software combinations. Earlier this year, one app developer said its app was downloaded by nearly 4,000 distinct devices in a six-month period—however large Apple's iOS lineup grows, it won't be a patch on Android's diversity.

Windows Phone 8

When you think of Microsoft, you typically don't think of design as the company's strongest suit, but it's definitely Windows Phone's trump card. Where iOS and Android cling to desktop-style icons and widgets, Windows Phone's Live Tiles are both more aesthetically striking and more useful. Unlike static icons, the live tiles can give you dynamically updated information, whether it's Twitter mentions, unread e-mails, photos from your camera roll, or game scores. Apps can display basically any information they want, and users can resize tiles to three different sizes to help control how much information is displayed. Unlike the basic icon badges used in iOS and Android, larger live tiles can also show helpful contextual information to let you know exactly what you're looking at.

The operating system's general look and feel are quite slick and fluid as well, and even the simple act of swiping through Windows Phone's home screen and applications looks and feels great. Both the HTC 8X and Nokia Lumia 920 use the same chip as Samsung's Galaxy SIII, the Qualcom Snapdragon S4 Plus, but the Windows phones are much more responsive. Android's responsiveness and fluidity is greatly improved in the latest version, but the aforementioned maze of OEMs and carriers will ensure this update rolls out to current phones belatedly, if at all. Windows Phone 8's update situation should be less complicated—while carriers can choose to delay updates if they wish, Microsoft promised that end users will be able to circumvent this and install the updates anyway.

Another point in Redmond's favor, at least if you work in a Microsoft-oriented business, is Windows Phone's tight integration with both consumer services like SkyDrive and business-oriented services like SharePoint or Office 365. A native Microsoft Office app, something that iOS and Android continue to lack, allows for the easy creation and editing of Office documents with minimal compatibility or formatting problems.

All of that said, Windows Phone hasn't yet found a wide audience. It's a problem from which most of the platform's major issues stem. Windows Phone suffers from a relative lack of apps, especially with some high-profile apps not available (see Hulu, Spotify, Pandora, etc.). Another issue is that some of the most interesting features we pointed out in our review work only with other Windows Phones, something other members of your social and professional circles are statistically unlikely to have.

Looking down the road a bit, another problem will come from the transition between Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8. All Windows Phone 7 apps will continue to run in Windows Phone 8, and the app store doesn't have to start from scratch again as it did just two short years ago. However, apps developed for Windows Phone 8 won't be compatible with Windows Phone 7, and no existing Windows Phone 7 handsets will be upgraded to the new version of the operating system.

This is a troubling attitude on Microsoft's part: we don't know what the company is going to do in the future, but we do know it just burned all of its early adopters (not least the poor souls who bought the Nokia Lumia 900 barely half a year ago). With this as our only precedent, recommending a Windows Phone handset becomes fraught with uncertainty. If you buy a Windows phone now, it will probably be kept up-to-date through the life of a standard two-year contract. But if you'd prefer to wait a few months or even a year to see whether the app situation improves, you might just be buying into an ecosystem with a limited shelf life.

241 Reader Comments

"Windows Phone 8's update situation should be less complicated—while carriers can choose to delay updates if they wish, Microsoft promised that end users will be able to circumvent this and install the updates anyway."

Bull. Shite.

Windows Phone 7.5 was supposed to have this same seamless update situation. Instead, Microsoft decided that everyone who invested in a WP7.5 handset could not get WP8. Full stop.

They'll get WP7.8, at some amorphous point in the future, which will include some cosmetic changes but no under-the-hood fixes that let you, say, get Skype calls in the background. If you bought a Lumia 900 this summer, your handset just got end-of-lifed after 6 months.

Based on this history, there's no reason to believe anyone with a WP8 handset will get updates in the future.

"Windows Phone 8's update situation should be less complicated—while carriers can choose to delay updates if they wish, Microsoft promised that end users will be able to circumvent this and install the updates anyway."

Bull. Shite.

Windows Phone 7.5 was supposed to have this same seamless update situation. Instead, Microsoft decided that everyone who invested in a WP7.5 handset could not get WP8. Full stop.

They'll get WP7.8, at some amorphous point in the future, which will include some cosmetic changes but no under-the-hood fixes that let you, say, get Skype calls in the background. If you bought a Lumia 900 this summer, your handset just got end-of-lifed after 6 months.

Based on this history, there's no reason to believe anyone with a WP8 handset will get updates in the future.

Perhaps, but may I just add that my Galaxy Nexus is still sitting on 4.04 and that's a Google phone supposedly immune to vendor interference. At least I can side-load the update (when I can be bothered) but it's still almost as ridiculous.

LG Optimus G is best Android phone? Isn't that short sighted? When Android 5 is out, you can safely bet your first born that it will not get it. Unfortunately the only Android phones worth buying for non technical inclined people are the Nexus line, straight from Google and not carriers. That or hopelessly wait for updates.

If you were to pick a best android phone overall (like, for us, non-US, non-tied to carrier, people), which would it be?

If you can get your hands on Nexus 4 for $299/$349, do it. You'll get guaranteed official updates for years to come, and unofficial patches for even longer. And I expect its community for custom ROMs, kernels and patches to be quite big.

"Windows Phone 8's update situation should be less complicated—while carriers can choose to delay updates if they wish, Microsoft promised that end users will be able to circumvent this and install the updates anyway."

Bull. Shite.

Windows Phone 7.5 was supposed to have this same seamless update situation. Instead, Microsoft decided that everyone who invested in a WP7.5 handset could not get WP8. Full stop.

They'll get WP7.8, at some amorphous point in the future, which will include some cosmetic changes but no under-the-hood fixes that let you, say, get Skype calls in the background. If you bought a Lumia 900 this summer, your handset just got end-of-lifed after 6 months.

Based on this history, there's no reason to believe anyone with a WP8 handset will get updates in the future.

True, but may I just add that my Galaxy Nexus is still sitting on 4.04 and that's a Google phone supposedly immune to vendor interference. At least I can side-load the update (when I can be bothered) but it's still almost as ridiculous.

Unless you bought your Galaxy Nexus from Google, it's affected by the same carrier interference as other non iPhone devices. Install the Google factory image on it, and don't look back.

It's funny how the author writes that Microsoft burned all its early-adopters from WP7 and describes the update situation with nexus devices as good. But that might only be true for those who bought a Lumia 900 just before WP8 got announced.

I got my Windows Phone 7 device in early 2010 (the LG Optimus 7, before Mango and before No-do) and i'm still getting updates for it. If i had bought a Nexus One back then, i would be stuck to 2.3.6. So I'm glad that Microsoft still does the effort and brings an updates 7.8 and maybe even more updates to that old platform.

The only criticism i have is that Microsoft should release their updates faster than they do now. 7.8 coming in early 2013. I hope they get a faster update rhythm in the future.

Of course nobody can look into the future, but i think WP8 buyer now will get updates for a long time.. I see no reason why MS would change the kernel completly in the near future.

So, you guys are just going to ignore Blackberry as a smartphone platform?

Your post is sure to generate a bit of hate as it appears you didn't read the article fully. I'm personally looking forward to seeing BB10, and I'm a blackberry fan (as I use my phone mostly for work), but the article does state on the first page why BB isn't in this article line up. I can't knock them for their reasoning either.

Hey about that giant Snapdragon ad that's inline with the article. It's kind of confusing for a minute. How about an "Advertisement" caption to indicate that, yes this is an ad and not part of the article?

So, you guys are just going to ignore Blackberry as a smartphone platform?

Your post is sure to generate a bit of hate as it appears you didn't read the article fully. I'm personally looking forward to seeing BB10, and I'm a blackberry fan (as I use my phone mostly for work), but the article does state on the first page why BB isn't in this article line up. I can't knock them for their reasoning either.

Edit: Poor word choice. Changed.

Yeah, sorry about that. I only read fast the first time, then went back and saw the mention.

Well, I understand the statement about Blackberry on the first page... but the implication that is they are tempted to just write off Blackberry as a platform. Which I guess maybe they are... it just seems that if you're going to do an article like this, with BB10 being a potential game changer for what used to be the main smartphone platform... maybe there should be a brief discussion of what it could potentially be? There's enough known about the OS to talk about it a little bit, and what is known makes it difficult to write off BB for sure.

It's incredibly, incredibly difficult to say anything useful about a platform that won't be shipping for four months, IF it doesn't slip again. We'll be very attentive in our coverage once we've actually got hardware and software to look at, but there's just no point in comparing previews and RIM's PR promises to hardware and software that's in store and available for purchase right now.

As someone with a Venue Pro that's still going strong after two years of use, I have to say that I'm not feeling burned by Microsoft at all. Actually, I'm pretty happy that we're getting 7.8, and I was impressed that the 7.8 development team was kind enough to spend a good week over at XDA developers asking for input on what 7.8 should bring.

That to me shows that honest effort is going into supporting an older iteration and that they're serious about the WP platform. As I've said before, I really can't be mad that my single core phone isn't getting dual core support. It's not as if I'm going to solder a new CPU in there.

It's funny how the author writes that Microsoft burned all its early-adopters from WP7 and describes the update situation with nexus devices as good. But that might only be true for those who bought a Lumia 900 just before WP8 got announced.

I got my Windows Phone 7 device in early 2010 (before Mango and before No-do) and i'm still getting updates for it. If i had bought a Nexus One back then, i would be stuck to 2.3.6. So I'm glad that Microsoft still does the effort and brings an updates 7.8 and maybe even more updates to that old platform.

The only criticism i have is that Microsoft should release their updates faster than they do now. 7.8 coming in early 2013. I hope they get a faster update rhythm in the future.

Of course nobody can look into the future, but i think WP8 buyer now will get updates for a long time.. I see no reason why MS would change the kernel completly in the near future.

Are you seriously comparing the Nexus One situation (a nearly 3 year old phone) with Lumia 900, the flagship of 4 months ago?

Well, I understand the statement about Blackberry on the first page... but the implication that is they are tempted to just write off Blackberry as a platform. Which I guess maybe they are... it just seems that if you're going to do an article like this, with BB10 being a potential game changer for what used to be the main smartphone platform... maybe there should be a brief discussion of what it could potentially be? There's enough known about the OS to talk about it a little bit, and what is known makes it difficult to write off BB for sure.

It's incredibly, incredibly difficult to say anything useful about a platform that won't be shipping for four months, IF it doesn't slip again. We'll be very attentive in our coverage once we've actually got hardware and software to look at, but there's just no point in comparing previews and RIM's PR promises to hardware and software that's in store and available for purchase right now.

Understood - perhaps I've just been too excited by the Dev Alpha handsets and all the leaks lately. Can't knock you guys for leaving it out of this one.

Surprised to not even see a mention of the Note 2, as I'm pretty sure that's Samsung's current flagship phone over the older SIII.

Edit: Nevermind, just saw that there was a mention under the DNA section that the Note 2 was excluded because of it's phone/tablet hybrid status. Seems like an arbitrary distinction to me, since buying a Note 2 from any carrier will require a regular phone plan, not a data only tablet plan. So it seems like most people (in the U.S. at least) are using this as a smartphone just like any other.

My wife convinced me to try MetroPCS and I've been loving my small LG Motion. The screen and camera are just decent, but the smaller size of the phone means you don't notice the lesser quality of the screen so much.

Why provide contract prices? Is Ars really THAT USA centric? RRP would be a lot more useful and a fairer comparison point.

Editor Moonshark says:

Yes, the majority of our readers are based in the USA. Additionally, the majority buy phones with contracts. In the future we'll consider including both costs when possible.

Also, it might be worth pointing out that the specs are for US flavours; in the rest of the world, for example, S3 is a quad core.

I am not sure how things work in the USA but here you can take a subsidy on a phone or equivalent account credit. Which makes the subsidised price a bit pointless as your readers should be able to work out a simple bit of arithmetic. Additionally, it is of no use to prepay customers, a huge proportion of mobile users, regardless of their nationality. Just saying...

Thanks, Ars! I honestly didn't expect to like this article from the headline, but I read the whole thing though and am looking forward to more. I get asked all the time by my iPhone-only extended family and co-workers why I use an Android phone and you explained it better than I ever have in your section about productivity.

How well does WP8 or even WP7 work with Linux? I'm always getting frustrated at how slow my Android phone is sometimes at the simplest tasks regardless of what I do to try to stop it. WP8/7 looks more interesting and people say it's always smooth regardless of how low spec'd the phone is(I'm really cheap). Would WP8 or WP7 allow me some sort of file syncing on Linux?

Surprised to not even see a mention of the Note 2, as I'm pretty sure that's Samsung's current flagship phone over the older SIII.

The Galaxy Note is marketed more for its tablet-y functions than its phone functions. I get what you're saying, for sure, but for us its humongous size seems like it would deter most mainstream users.

If it were in this comparison, I'd probably pick the Note II out of the Android pack as best productivity phone though. The stylus gives it a bit of extra flexibility there.

Yeah, saw that mention after I posted in the DNA preview, and was editing my original comment when you posted this reply. As I said there, I can understand a bit, but it seems that the carriers are marketing the Note 2 as a phone, since you can't get, AFAIK, a data only plan for it like you can with a tablet.

Based on reports it seems like this will be Samsung's second best selling Android phone of the year after the SIII, so it seems fairly mainstream.

Decent article. I'd love to have seen one bit of spin added to it: not just "best productiviy" but specifically seperate end users from corporate phones. aka, if you were to be in the market for a BYOD phone for work, what impact is placed on your choice, and similarly, if you're a company buying phones for end users what should you be looking for?

For example, out of the VAST majority of my clients, they're subject to HIPAA, SOx, or even STIG rules, which means Android can only play if they further invest in 3rd party servers and per-phone encryption licensing, which also strictly limits phone choice. Further, due to security rules, some companies have to disable USB and SD access on phones connected to their network, removing core buying points from some platforms or forcing choices to phones with more internal and less external storage due to encryption hardware support. My current client, AVID android lovers and die hard apple haters, recently changed to issuing iPhones to all corporate employees when they dumped blackberry as Android has turned out to be a) too expensive to support, b) creates numerous user issues, and 3) we've even issued and then recalled hundreds of phones for stupid UI issues (like the HTC Design not supporting corporate directory in the mail app!). It was woefully inconsistant, and created a significant IT burden. Moving to iOS allowed them to eliminate all 3rd party security servers for phones entirely, and eliminate handset specific licensing as well, all for installing a single $900 Apple Server and using customized phone profiles pushed by Exchange. IT no longer even has to configure a phone fgor end users, thery can be given 1 sheet of paper and do it themselves, so Apple is now the ONLY phone supproted by a group and anti-apple android fanbois at corporate.

I know this is part one, I'd love to see some more in depth about corpoate phones and choices, and implications, in part 2.

The iPhone 5 has the best camera but you've provided no sample images?

Editor Moonshark says:

This was an editing mistake and it is being addressed right now. Thanks for noticing!

Please provide side-by-side comparisons with the Nokia 920. Every other review I've seen has the 920 as the better camera (and every photo comparison I've seen has convinced me the 920 has the better camera) - and its camera app is much more capable and has more features. So please put together something that shows why you're the only reviewers choosing the iPhone camera over the 920's.

It's a shame the Lumia 920 seems to have been only reviewed on its gloss versions with no mention of the matt black and cyan. These feel a lot better and more along the lines of the HTC.

I'm a bit of a iPhone fan turned lumia fan though so I am a little defensive. That said it was good enough to turn me. Once you try built in wireless charging you'll never want go back to fiddling with a cable on your bedside table ever again!

As for xbox music pass, I've never listened to as much music as I have done now. All there to download whenever I want for $8/month. Happy customer here!

Are you seriously comparing the Nexus One situation (a nearly 3 year old phone) with Lumia 900, the flagship of 4 months ago?

No i have compared a WP7 device from 2010 to the Nexus One from 2010. I just mentioned that what i said might not be true the Lumia 900 buyers.

The Nexus One was released in January 2010 while the first WP7 phones weren't out until nearly November 2010. That's not exactly apples-to-apples, as the nearly 10 full months between them is practically an eternity in smart phone time.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.